


Fourteen Seas

by motelsamndean (whalesandfails)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:54:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22358287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whalesandfails/pseuds/motelsamndean
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Kudos: 6





	Fourteen Seas

Sam was fourteen and the waves were low. Lapped against his worn sneakers, red converse against the muted greys and browns of pebbled Atlantic sea. They’d been to seventeen schools this year and it was only October. And Sam had never seen the ocean.   
Dean remembered the last time he had been to the coast, remembered how Dad had driven straight in one direction after leaving Lawrence, how they had hit the coast around Maine after following a serpentine road east, how Dad had fallen to his knees and Dean looked over the steering wheel of Baby to see his father broken on the beach. To see his father in fragments and devastated. Dean watched John for three songs on the cassette player before his father picked up his feet and approached the car, scooted Dean over to the passenger side and ignited the engine, driving back inland. They hadn’t returned to the coast since.   
But Sam looked beautiful with the salty spray whipping his long locks that he refused to let Dad cut blowing across his face, with his Chuck Taylors slowly turning deep crimson as the water inched over rubber toes, the way the red turned from pure primary color to the deep russet of dried blood. His shoulders folded inwards, even as he looked up at the gulls circling high above, looked ready to sprout wings himself from the way his bones were fragile and brittle and the longing that echoed down his lean body through to the fingertips turning pink from the chill. Long sleeve tee rucked up to elbows even as goosebumps raised along lean forearms.   
Dean could hear the crashing of the waves and the susurrus of churning water, but couldn’t look away from his brother. He breathed in and out with the swells, a perfect copy of Sam’s slow breathing. He had only seen the ocean once, but he could never look away when Sam was near.   
He was sprouting up, could press a chilled nose to Dean’s chin when he wriggled in close. Pants short enough that his thin ankles were always exposed, threadbare socks on display, small holes Dean wanted to pry fingers into only to touch skin. His brother was fourteen. He tried to repeat it like a mantra over and over: fourteen, fourteen, fourteen. His breath caught in his throat when Sam turned around.   
Glowing smile creasing smooth skin, eyes alight, brighter than the cloudy, rolling sky. Dean could buy a pack of smokes, could buy enough booze to forget the people they couldn’t save and salve wounds both, but the one thing he desperately wanted – ached for, longed after – that was still forbidden to touch. Would be from this day until the end of days.   
Dean knew he was a child himself, people told him every day. Told him he’d get out of hunting. Told him he’d make a name for himself as a mechanic. But the only thing he’d truly hunted after, strived for – Sam. It had always been Sam. Dean had watched his father crumple onto sand ages old, sand that had come up from the depths that day that would be blown away with the wind the next, sand that had seen creatures Dean couldn’t even fathom. He watched his father through the dusty windshield, didn’t know if the dirt and grime covering the dash were from the long arid days driving through desert or if there were fragments of his home settled there as a fine layer of ash. If pieces of their mother had come with them across the long, long, long cross-country drive.   
Most four year olds didn’t remember much, but Dean knew that day. Knew by staring at his brother in the back seat just what this meant. He had loved Sam before, but in a brotherly way, a little spiteful of the attention he stole. Now, Dad on his knees, Dean looked at Sam and knew. There was no coming back from a love like that. Dean was a child but hadn’t been for fourteen years. Fourteen.   
He met Sam’s smile and descended the beach, looked at his work boots leaving deep imprints in the sand, compared them to Sam’s soft-soled sneaker tread. He came up behind his brother, wound arms around his shoulders. They looked out at the waves together. Dean tried to see the horizon, the fine line where sky met sea, but he only saw Sam. Sam filling up all space, all the gaps in the world. Dean imagined all the creatures in the depths, how far they were from the perfection in his arms. He never understood biology class, but he thought all the animals were slowly evolving to look more like Sam. Limbs lengthening, skin bronzing, eyes gleaming – elongating and morphing to look like the enigma in his arms.   
Dean pressed his nose to Sam’s hair and his little brother shifted in his arms. They were children, and adults, and infants. A dichotomy of love already lost and love to be found. It wasn’t lust, not yet – not for a while. But it was a longing deep in Dean’s chest that he couldn’t shake even when his arms twined around Sam. He wanted to be closer, wanted to fall deep into the depths of the ocean and transform into something else. Wanted to need Sam to breathe.   
A large swell approached the shore, and they both spun back, grappling to stay in each others’ arms while trying to avoid the foaming, frothing sea. It looked different when it heaved, like a thing to be feared.   
Sam remembered the burgers they had promised Dad who waited patiently back at the motel, and Dean began tormenting Sam with all the grease he would put on his – the neon orange cheese, the fatty, greasily dripping bacon. Sam’s nose scrunched as he wound his way around to the passenger side and tucked his way into Baby like it was second nature, movement fluid and easy. Dean cast one long glance at the beach before turning the key in the engine, couldn’t meet Sam’s eye for an agonizing second. His heart pounded. He was ten feet away and suddenly he was afraid of drowning.   
Afraid of succumbing. He shook the thought away.   
Sam stared out the dash as Dean backed out of the parking lot, eyes tracking the coast even as Dean turned and drove away. The car no longer smelled like burning ash, and Dean could drive instead of stare at Dad helplessly through the spokes of the steering wheel. Sam was in the passenger seat instead of buckled into an improvised car seat in the back. But it felt like the same day. Like the ocean hadn’t changed at all even though the coastline would erode and change over the fourteen years between now and the next time he’d visit. Because Dean knew two things: the ache tied to this car and to his brother. And the world turned and turned but it didn’t matter – not really. He was nothing more than a conduit for loving Sam, and the ocean’s tides would pull and the world would spin and he would stay right here.


End file.
